Research on cultural and local content production in Rwanda’s media sector
Broadly the objective of the baseline research was to provide baseline scientific data to guide the establishment of a viable mechanism that will enable the development of cultural content production for consumption via the media, thus promoting local and diversified content in Rwanda.
Specific Objectives
Highlight challenges hindering the development of local content and propose strategies to overcome them;
Map cultural industries in Rwanda;
Enlighten media practitioners on how to diversify content so as to meet consumers’ tastes and preferences.
Identify the key barriers and challenges hindering the development of creative industries and content creation for media consumption;
Identify the extent of and areas in which capacity building and human resource development will be required
There is serious need for both long and short term capacity building interventions in local content production in Rwanda. First short-term skill and knowledge transfer initiatives should be put in place by media entities to build internal capacities towards quality content production. The researcher further recommended ongoing or regular in house training by outsourced external experts as a short-term measure to gradually upgrade the existing technical capacity;
Long-term capacity building projects need to be set up to proactively boost the skill levels of Rwandans with a passion for content production. Audio-visual content production training facilities should be established across the country to foster skill development in media content production and entrepreneurship to drive industry growth;
Language diversity of content is a crucial driver of international marketability of Rwandan content. The researcher recommended that Local and creative content producers considered incorporating different languages, such as Kiswahili, English and French, to make Rwandan content inclusive and appealing to non-Rwandans and enable Rwandans to tell Rwanda’s stories to the world and themselves;
The researcher recommends that local content should be geared towards reflecting Rwandan values and culture, rich history and unique identity of Rwandans, the day-to-day Rwandan way of life and developmental matters while ensuring consistently high quality of productions;
The researcher recommended a nationwide data gathering exercise to develop an exhaustive database of cultural industries in Rwanda and local talent and content producers, e.g. film makers, film crew practitioners, radio producers, music producers, content creators, who can be partners in local content production and mechanism put in place for regularly updating that database. This database will form a sound basis for targeted capacity building initiatives and intervention.
Fund: 23,000 US Dollars